Saint_clark

We shall see, he hasn't really been given a chance for us further forward. Watching clips of him in Holland (I know, I know) he got a lot of assists playing balls through the middle. For us he's looked at his best when closing down and pressing high up, which this role gives him more of a chance to do.

No? Romeu deep, Clasie and Davis CM, Tadic tip of the diamond.

Glad to see Clasie given a chance, reckon he'll suit the CM role further forward than he has played for us previously. Should be Hojberg in for Davis though.

One of the more enjoyable games i've seen for a while, still being spoilt by the huge amount of playacting going on. Everyone is screaming and rolling around at every little contact...

"I could have done that".

Except it's quite clearly not the same. Under Poch you had Morgan and Cork dropping deep, last season Wanyama and Clasie/Romeu. This season it's just Romeu on his own with two midfielders kind of in no mans land whilst they figure out what it is they're supposed to do, Tadic playing damn well as a number 10 and two strikers who run wide. The problem may well be that the CMs we have aren't adept enough at getting forward to score goals, and so the strikers going wide leaves no-one in the middle to score from their passes back in.

Weird thing is my dads europa bundle tickets have turned up buying through membership, but mine haven't buying through season ticket.

Wait, they're NOT being uploaded? I just assumed that's why I hadn't received any yet...

Well i've got the three day window booked off work and will be buying a ticket for this whilst keeping an eye on last minute flight prices. Fingers crossed for a huge dip the day before or something.

The difference is of course that we knew we'd sell out to home fans, Inter certainly will not.

Very strange.

Now that looks like an absolutely cracking away end!

I'll take that deal; but how will we sort the tickets out before then? EDIT - sorted.

Probably not, no. They've said that those in the first category are guaranteed a ticket so obviously there's less than 5k for that, but then there's another what...4 or 5 levels of season ticket holder eligibility? Be very surprised if it gets beyond season ticket holders.

Saints are clearly aware that players can develop late, hence the reason for keeping the ones they saw potential in into their mid 20s.

As above, it's from the Metro, but ONLY the Metro (unless the original source is unreleased as of yet).

Quote from here; http://metro.co.uk/2016/09/03/jose-fonte-speaks-out-about-failed-manchester-united-transfer-6107619/ But no idea where they got it from? If true then it's a disgraceful thing to say but...something about it seems odd to me. Why would he be speaking only to the Metro? The way it's phrased as well just doesn't sound like the way he speaks. Why would he repeat the question back to them?

How are Villa doing? How have Boro done since they signed Alves? How are Norwich doing? Spurs again they have much more money, Andy Carroll for Liverpool they have much more money, Shevchenko for Chelsea, really? You've also taken one part of my post which was, as you say, just an example.

Yes, but Liverpools turnover is much higher than ours, especially commercial revenue. You cannot compare that to our situation.

As I posted above if you add up all the transfer fees since the last set of accounts we've reinvested (roughly) £70million of (roughly) £95million brought in. One of our biggest complaints as fans is that players are able to kick up a fuss and leave whenever they want...the club have done their best to address this by paying extra money to tie players down to 5/6 year contracts. Yes players can still kick up a fuss, but unless we get what we want (which will be extortionate in this market with contracts that long) they won't be going anywhere for at least 3/4 years when their contracts are about to expire and we'd accept less - so it's in the players interests to continue playing to the best of their abilities if we decide we haven't got a fair offer. Personally, I would never want to see Saints spend as much or more than they brought in.

But possibly invest less in their infrastructure, or have been in the Prem longer and have better commercial deals, or haven't had two useless wage-draining former record signings in their squad for the last few years.

So since then we've got a fair chunk of wages off the books - Boruc, Mayuka, Hooiveld, Clyne, Aldeweireld, Schneiderlin, Osvaldo, Ramirez, Davis, Mane, Wanyama, Pelle. All of those in transfer fees add up to just under £95million brought in. Added to the wage bill - Cedric, Martina, Clasie, Romeu, Van Dijk, Austin, Redmond, Hoejberg, Pied, McCarthy, Boufal. Transfer fees combined for those is just over £73million. So a £20million profit, plus to my eyes that should be quite a bit of savings in wages. The next set of accounts should show a reduction in the debt and an even healthier financial state...if not there may be a case to be made for asking Les Reed to clarify what the debt is. (To me this also shows that we do in fact reinvest a reasonable amount of the money we bring in). Disclaimer - these are estimates from soccerbase. I also left Juanmi out completely seeing as he was signed and sold in the same period.

They're so desperate to find a stick to hit us with that they seem to have forgotten you can travel to other places in the world without using a football clubs official travel package.

I find it very hard to believe our debt is increasing that much when we own all our assets and our wage bill is comparatively low. Bit of scaremongering going on me thinks.

I'd wager that it won't make general sale to be honest...if it makes it to the members stage it will sell out then.